


Midnight Rendezvous

by roundandtalented



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, M/M, Moving, Trolls on Earth (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25497160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundandtalented/pseuds/roundandtalented
Summary: Having recently moved to a new city, Dave settles into his new home.  The drive to the new place sucked, and it's real agoraphobia hours, but living with Dirk is pretty chill otherwise.Oh, and the weird neighbor is kinda cute.For theCrabapple Zine
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 138





	Midnight Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> Please do yourself a favor and check out the other wonderful submissions to the Crabapple Zine!! <3

Moving is awful. You've done it twice in your short excuse for a life and honestly, gotta say, you're not a fan. Packing up all your shit sucked. Trying to make important things fit into the back of Dirk's truck? Also sucked. The twenty-six hour drive to a state you're not sure you and your brother can afford to live in? Sucks for the whole twenty-six friggin' hours. 

(At least he was fine with you playing what you wanted for music the whole ride. Maybe he's so wound tight about everything he actually wants to not micromanage something in his life for once. Wow.)

Being relocated the first week of summer makes you feel like your whole life is getting a reset. And not just because some uptight woman in a suit told you that. It's true, she was right. You and Dirk are getting a hard-reset, and it's weird to think that your whole life up 'til now, you're not even sure you did anything that needed to be erased like some sorta botched save file.

You've just been here, vibing best you can. And now you're in some picket fence neighborhood, standing out like a sore thumb amongst all the nuclear families mowing the lawn or sitting on their porches with a beer while their 2.5 kids and a dog play in the yard. 

"How long d’you think it takes someone to call the cops on us?" You ask, voice strained as you try carrying two boxes of records up the driveway in the same trip. 

"Depends how loud you play tonight." Your brother shrugs, closing the drivers side door and shouldering his backpack. "But I'd give it two days at least before they forget we moved in."  
When he unlocks the front door, you're struck with the overwhelming sense of inadequacy upon the first look into your new home. 

The only real furniture you brought with you is a futon, and two dressers. The rest is coming in a U-box shipping container in about a week, but even then. You've lived in a one bedroom apartment most of your life, and this house feels unreal. Dirk said it's considered a smaller house, for a three bedroom. And that normally, if renovations were done, it'd be a two bedroom with an en suite instead. 

Still. If it wasn't covered by your crazy situation, it'd be something totally unattainable to two reasonably broke dudes whose incomes are tied directly to the internet.

You may not have to pay for the house thanks to the witness protection program, but you still will have to cover monthly living expenses in one of the most expensive states in the country. There's a reason this house was repossessed by the bank, and you really don't want to think about whoever lived here before you, or what happened to them. 

You were kind of a shut-in when you lived in Texas, but something about the new neighborhood and how pristine it is wigs you out something fierce. Dirk used to only leave to get supplies or take you on a snack run, so usually if you wanted to go photograph cool shit, you went by yourself. You lived in Houston for a good ten years, so you'd gotten used to the big city vibe.  
You can only see so many cowboy boots and truck nuts before you kind of just have to accept that it's a way of life, and that going to the local Coldstone wasn't a harrowing experience. At least not every time.

There's a McDonald's about a fifteen minute walk from your new house, according to Google. You spend an hour trying to figure out which outfit will get you the least looks on your walk- but you only have so many tshirt and jeans combos, and the heat, while close to Texas levels, isn't helping the way you're sweating, standing in front of the door.

"Goin' somewhere?" Dirk asks, toweling his hair dry as he watches you through both the mirror's reflection and the bathroom doorway.

"McDicks."  
"Bring me home some fries?"  
"The saddest, limpest motherfuckers you ever did see."  
"Nice."

And you intend to! You really do! But you only get the door open a moment before some joggers pass the house, and the kids across the road look your way and-

The door slams shut, your heart racing, your fear a deep burrowing pit in your chest. Did you do that? Yeah, you did- you're leaning against the door, and Dirk is watching you in the mirror with a single raised eyebrow, not saying a word. 

"Forgot my keys." You lie, and quickly head back to your room, struggling not to walk too fast, keys heavy in your pants pocket. 

Dirk doesn't question you. He doesn't even prod when three hours later you come back downstairs and make some ramen on the stove. It smells like defeat, but also a comfortable habit. 

It's real agoraphobia hours, and you're fucking hungry.

He just sits incorrectly on a folding chair, laptop balanced on his knee rather than the table between you, absorbed in his work. 

"Have you met any of the neighbors yet?" You ask him, blowing on your hot food.  
You've not seen him leave the house yet, but you have your suspicions he has. He's just quieter about it than you are.

"Yeah. It's a bunch of young families with kids by the look of it. A few teens sat on our lawn earlier." He doesn't glance up, but the rapid tapping on his keyboard pauses.

"Across the road and two houses to the right- they're either poly or Mom has a secret boyfriend."

Oh. So he's not spoken to anyone, he's just been watching out the windows and narrating their lives to himself, huh? Alright. 

Some people play The Sims, your brother has binoculars and a notebook. Everyone's got something weird they do, right? He's just a little quirky, but he means well.

Honestly he probably started it for the same reason you started making comics- it was easier to focus on other people's lives than on your own. 

"Good for her? Get it, I guess." You slurp up some noodles and he stands, setting his laptop down.

"Need you to make a grocery list dude. I know we've got like, the basics from the drive over, but put some fun stuff on, not just Poptarts." Dirk hands you a pen and a notebook, and you nod as you set them away from your meal. Unless he wants ramen on it, you're not touching it until you're done.

"And Dave?" He scoops up his laptop and begins to head towards the stairs.

"Mmm?" You make a point to look at him with your mouth full of noodles, some hanging out.

"Try and relax. We're safe here."

You know.  
You know you are, but that doesn't stop your brain from saying otherwise for the next day or so.

Once the sun is down, and all the houses around yours go dark, you head to the room at the end of the upstairs hall that is intended to serve as a workshop. All of your DJ equipment is still in boxes, but Dirk has at least started unpacking his shit, even if there's nowhere to store it yet.  
The two of you are still keeping your clothes in suitcases- both because of the lack of furniture in the house for a few more days, and because unpacking is so fucking shit to do. You don't want to look at every shirt you own, or item with cursed memories attached to it. 

You kind of just want to exist.

And since it's pitch black outside, you figure the roof is a good place to exist. Hopefully without all the panic from earlier.

The workshop has a tiny balcony on it that Dirk intends to use for any projects that need spray paint or sealant. He used to lean out the window to do that shit in Texas, but it's kind of nice that there's a real space for it here that doesn't have him risking falling 20+ stories if he slips. The most that would happen to you now would be rolling down the side of the roof before tumbling into some overgrown bushes. There's even a lattice fence thing nearby to climb back up with, so really, you're golden.

Thankfully you don't fall. You climb up and you just sit there on your roof, dicking around on your phone and enjoying being able to look up at the stars without too brutal of an obnoxious glow from the city.

It's nice enough that you don't need your shades.

At about the hour mark, you've chilled to the point of laying down, just watching airplanes fly overhead, and trying to pick them out from the satellites. It's wild that there's whole other planets out there in space, looking down at you. And seriously bonkers that some of them are so much worse off than the rock you live on.

You hear some noise to your left, and a window snaps open a moment after you pause your music. When you turn, you have to squint still in the darkness to spot someone climbing out of the second floor and onto the roof.

Your new neighborhood is very cookie cutter, copy pasted house designs full of nuclear families, and the houses really aren't even built that far apart. So you can see that the person now mirroring you on top of their own home isn't aware of you yet. 

They have a book with them, and a reading light. When they sit down and flick it on, you have the delight of spotting your very first non-nuclear neighbor.

They're a troll. 

Texas wasn't kind to trolls. Not that most of Texas was kind to humans either, but, you recall several instances that made you angry _for_ trolls, because they continued to get the short end of the stick.

Here though, you're not sure what the case is. You've not left your house yet, technically, so you've not checked to see what the locals think of not only you, but literal aliens now living amongst the population as refugees. 

Your neighbor has a curly mess of hair that rivals the shape of yours if you let it get long, but you have to search for the iconic troll horns to find them. They're not scary long horns like anything you've seen on the news broadcasts, and this troll really doesn't look that big either.

They can't be more than 5ft2. So are they just young? You've seen the humans that live in that house, and they're middle aged, which leads you to believe the troll is likely just staying with them, or is adopted. 

Probably the second option.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" A gruff voice interrupts your thoughts. 

Oh balls, they spotted you. He? Spotted you? You think He.

You fumble with your phone, dropping it in a panic and then having to chase it a little ways down the roof as it begins to slide. You snatch it back up, but any semblance of cool vibes has been washed away by your glorious spaghetti moment. 

"Howdy neighbor," You try, waving. Why are you waving? He wasn't friendly, he wasn't saying hi. He caught you staring at him! 

"Fuck off."  
He squints at you in the glow of his book light, and there's challenge behind it. He's not getting off his roof, so you need to leave. 

"Uh, no." Wow, you're kind of at a loss with this. He's the first person you felt might be approachable, and he told you to fuck off. Blind optimism is about the only thing you can come up with, so you pick yourself up, and move over to the edge of the roof closest to his house.  
When you sit back down, feet hanging over the edge, he's still watching you and hasn't moved an inch.

"Hi. I'm Dave." You plop your phone down in your lap. "I just moved in."  
"I know."  
"You knew my name?" 

He sputters and slaps his book against his face as if he were face-palming. 

"No, fucknuts, I knew you just moved in!"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess." You shrug, and he does lower his book down. "So what's your name?"

You're going for kind of annoying, but in the way people sometimes find endearing. Maybe you can annoy him into friendship? That seems to work well enough for some of your buddies online.

"Karkat."  
He's still squinting at you, and now you're able to see the roundness to his face that matches the soft curve of his horns. The soft curve of his everything, really. He looks around your age, but either he doesn't sleep much or he's got some years on you, because those eye bags are killer.  
"What do you want?"

You don't really have much of a thought-to-text filter, so it just comes out of you.

"Someone to talk to."

His grumpy face falls and you immediately feel like an asshole for saying it, but it's _true_. You were too scared of the neighborhood to go to fucking McDonald's and the only person you've spoken to offline for the past four days has been your brother.

You want some fucking company. 

"Okay." 

Karkat picks himself up, bringing his book and light with him, and walks over to the edge of his roof closest to you. There's only a small grass corridor between you- it's ten feet apart maximum. Enough you wouldn't want to try jumping, but not so far that you can’t see details like the curls near his ears that look like they’d be wide ringlets if they grew longer. Cute.

He sits himself down, and sighs, like he's trying to act put out, but doesn't want to tell you no either.

"I can talk for fucking hours so be prepared to cut me off at some point because I WILL keep going and I WILL be an asshole at several points during this conversation." He keeps his book in his lap, face lit from below like he's about to tell spooky stories at a campfire or some shit. Hey, you’d be game for rooftop ghost stories or just some scp readings, you love creepy shit like that.  
But. Maybe you’ll start with something more suited to normies, and you haven’t figured out just how weird this dude is yet.

"Oh man same, but like, sorry in advance for inserting song lyrics or movie lines into the conversation at any point. If you don't laugh I'll just assume you have poor taste." Normal folks like music right? And movies? You can’t just drop a bomb like ‘I have a bunch of wet specimens coming in a U-box’ in the first ten minutes of conversation and expect that to go well.

"My taste in music is questionable, but my taste in movies is top tier and that's not up for debate." He shrugs and raises a thick bushy eyebrow at you as if to challenge you into opening this topic for discussion. 

You don't want to start your talk with the neighbor troll as an argument though. You just wanna chill and talk. Maybe a little bickering, just for fun.  
When he does take the opportunity to launch into talking, he picks the worst question to ask.

"Where did you live before you moved here?"

Fucking, shitballs, fuck, goddamnit! You're not sure you're allowed to even tell people that? Does witness protection allow that? Does your accent not give you away already?

"Fuck, I know very little country music, music reference doesn't work." You pull up your phone and start frantically googling, but Karkat is already squinting.

"The only location based country song I'd even know is Sweet Home Alabama, so don't strain yourself for nothing." Karkat crosses his legs under himself, apparently a bit of a fidget.  
"Well it's not that one, but same vibe."  
"I could just go look at the plates on your truck?"

Oh. You totally forgot about that part. Guess everyone else knows then- except Karkat, you suppose? There's no point in hiding it then.

"Texas. It was kind of a hasty move, so we just drove." 

He nods, plops his book down in his lap, closed so you assume you really do have his full attention now.  
"Ok, your turn. Ask me a question." The way he looks at you, either his eyes have some tapida lucidum shit going on, or they actually glow in the dark. Hella weird, but honestly you've not spent time with trolls at night before. 

"We're playing Twenty Questions?" You're not opposed, just surprised.

"Sure, why the fuck not. Take the opportunity to be nosy if you want." Why does he always sound grumpy? Maybe that's just how he talks?

"Uhhhh, how long have you been here?"

"Here as in this house, or here as in ' _you're an alien, go back to your planet_ '?" His eyes are narrow, judging little slits, and you can absolutely tell this guy has a chip on his shoulder. He must have been bullied mercilessly in highschool. Middleschool. Shit, probably his whole time on earth.

You fumble with your words for a moment, because shit, you sound awful asking that huh?  
"Both, but like, in a culturally sensitive way." 

He snorts, rolling his eyes.

"No I mean it, in a 'how much have you experienced and do you like it' kinda way." You try to clarify, feeling like an asshole. You deserve it, sure, but he just basically did the same shit you did. 

"This house, about five years. This planet? Eight, I think. There's a time measurement difference, but I basically came down when I was six sweeps, so around thirteen in human years. Not long after the first batch of refugees. As soon as it was an option, I took the next ship in my area that was fleeing." He shrugs, as if it's no big deal.  
"The foster care system sucks, but my family now is good. I'd probably not have made it to my adult form if I stayed on Alternia."

Holy fuck. So it really is true that it's brutal there. Killing kids and shit.  
"Well I'm glad you're here then." 

When he smiles at you it's so genuine you can't help yourself in grinning back. Karkat has a cute smile, and his teeth hang over his bottom lip, even if it's not a grin like yours. His posture softens, and you feel yourself relax too. This is good. This is nice.

"Your turn." You remind him, and he shifts again, pants catching on a shingle and causing him to grumble at it before stretching his legs out to mirror you.

Going by the dates he gave you, he's actually a year older than you, but he's clearly almost a foot shorter. Weren't most trolls supposed to be fucking huge once they were adults? Weird.

"Who's the guy you came with?"

Oh. So he's been watching you. Or at least, watching the windows. Eh, you've been just as curious too, you suppose. 

"My brother Dirk."  
"He looks out the window a lot."  
"Yeah. We used to live in an apartment? So this picket fence setup is new and a little weird. He's nosy, so like, don't be surprised if you catch him staring or some shit."

Karkat barks out a laugh and shakes his head.  
"He'll fit in just fine. Everyone on this fucking block is so nosy and up in everyone else's business." He informs you, and you can’t help but take note that he keeps the light on so that you can see him. There’s really no other reason for it to be on, unless he straight up forgot to turn it off.

"This is fun." You admit, a bit sheepish, but you're excited to ask him another question. "Movies were right, twenty questions is good."

"It is weirdly very cinematic, isn't it?" He agrees, stuffing one hand in the pocket of his oversized hoodie. "Sitting up on our roofs well past midnight? All we need is some tin cans and a string, and it's hollywood-ready."

Your game continues until the two of you are laying on your respective roofs, too tired to keep going, at which point you call it a night and agree for a repeat the next day. And you’re genuinely excited for it. 

Karkat totally flips his shit when you show up, same time, same place, with some honest to god cans on a string. Except you miscalculated the string length needed so it falls short when you try to toss one end to his house, and he laughs himself hoarse at you, and one of the neighbours shouts at him to shut up from their house across the road.

He doesn’t have the breath in him to effectively shout back ‘fuck you!’, but when he tries anyways and a squeak comes out instead, you have to sit your ass down before you fall off the roof laughing at him. Thankfully, the rest of the night comes pretty easy to the two of you.

To your delight, Karkat gives you his phone number in place of the cans, and then his Pesterchum handle just in case it rains on you one night. You like the idea of being able to talk to him during the day too, but you’re kind of wondering when he sleeps? If he sleeps at all?  
You use one of your questions that night to ask him as much, and he tells you thats a creepy as fuck question, and ‘wouldn’t you like to know’, so you chalk it up to a big ol’ shrug. It will remain a mystery to you if Karkat Vantas gets any sleep at all, and that’s fine.

You text him when you have to piss at 9am, right before you return to bed, and are greeted with an actual coherent response. It only spurs you to talk to him more once you’ve gotten a bit more sleep. More turns into texting him steadily for days.  
He's grouchy and types in all caps, and his rants about bad movies are crazy endearing.  


And very slowly, your anxiety about leaving your house starts to fade into the background. More and more, you find yourself thinking about what it’d be like to watch movies with Karkat, or go get dinner together. If he’d be warm to the touch like some trolls, or cold like others? You want to ask him or find out yourself, but you know from all the reading you’ve done, and trolls you’ve met in the past that it’s a cultural taboo and very insensitive to bring up.  
So thats another mystery about him. You don’t know if he ever sleeps, and you don’t know if his hand would be warm if you held it. Which, you’ve gotta admit, you really want to do. Fuck.

Unfortunately, with time passing, the U-box arrives and Dirk starts spending more late nights in the work room... Which is what leads you to eventually deciding you can attempt to meet Karkat on the ground at midnight, rather than on the roof for once.

It's a step in the right direction, you think. Because you don't need your brother listening in on your conversations with the cute neighbor, and you _do_ need to get used to walking around the yard of the home you fucking live in now. Now and for the foreseeable future, really.

So instead of making your way onto the roof at midnight, you slip out the back door, bare foot, and tiptoe over to the crease in the grass between your yard, and Karkat's. The light flicks on over his back porch, and the door slides open. Out peers your friend- because you're friends now, you guess. You don't just play twenty questions for two weeks and meet up each night and NOT become friends with the guy... You also couldn't help crushing on someone so charming and funny.  
Oops. 

Karkat closes the door behind him and walks across the little deck, over to the stairs where he sits down and pats the place next to him.

You hesitate, but he waves his hand in a 'come here' motion, and oh, shit.... fuck, yeah you can do this. There's a cute troll boy who wants you to come sit with him! You can do this!

Dew covered grass sticks to the bottoms of your feet, and you step on at least two hidden thistles, but you eventually plop down beside him, and it's like you're back on the roof, talking each other's ears off in a conversation that's half the fun kind of argument.

Only he's right beside you and now you get to see up close how animated he is as he talks at you. Rants at you, really. His leg is so warm against yours you can feel it through both your pants and his, and it’s distracting how nice it is, even as he tells you awful stories.

"Highschool is rough for everyone, it's a universal constant," You offer, but he shakes his head.

"I lasted one week, Dave. ONE. Not only was I very lost on all of earth history class topics, but I had classmates quoting old 90s TV series at me daily. None of them were even alive when Invader Zim was airing, and they STILL asked if I had ears, every fucking day." Five minutes in to his rant and he's practically frothing at the mouth while the claws on his left hand dig into the wood the two of you are seated on.

"So you just homeschool'd after that?"  
"Until last year. That's old for humans to be doing highschool but I knew none of Earth's shit at thirteen so it took a while to catch up." You nod, but really, you're still watching him. The way he talks, the way his whole body shifts when he gets into a conversation.

He’s wonderful, and entertaining in ways you’re really not used to. You and your brother try not to take yourselves too seriously, but that’s all Karkat does and it’s the most genuine you’ve ever seen anyone be with themselves. He’s all emotion, there for anyone with eyes to see. All passion for his interests, for conversation…. He genuinely seems so glad to be there next to you and you’re over the fucking moon about it.

You blink, a little dazed, as you realize he's asked you another question. Balls.

"Uhhh."  
"Dave." He meets your gaze, determination clearly there but you have no idea what for.  
"Can I kiss you?"

Oh fuck. Shit.

Your brain to mouth filter craps out for what must be the hundredth time since you met Karkat on the roof, and you blurt out exactly what you're thinking.

"Not if I kiss you first."  
"What?" 

He's confused for a second, and then you plant one on him. The quickest smooch you can steal! Right on the mouth! Because if you do it fast, you can't chicken out!

"What the fuck, no fair!" He shouts, and he’s trying to look mad, but there’s no hiding the way he’s grinning.  
You laugh when Karkat grabs your hand, then snatches a return kiss right back. And then you're both laughing, dumb and excited, warm in the cheeks. 

It's so stupid and cliche, but whatever. You're having fun. You can have a little midnight rendezvous on Karkat's back porch, as a treat. And if you trade kisses and hushed whispers ‘til three am, so what? You’re having fun!

By total chance, you happen to look back to your house just in time to catch your brother standing at the back door. He's got his phone held up to the glass to take a picture, and you think you see him wink, then he shuts the blinds.

Nosy prick!

You're about to tell Karkat you've been caught, but his hand touches your face oh so gently, and then oops! Oh no! You're kissing him again, what a clear distraction from being annoyed at your sibling!

It's hard to be mad at Dirk if you're too busy making out with Karkat. Which, by the way, is occupying most of your brain cells at the moment. You can only think about Karkat, and how you really needed a little bit of happiness like this.


End file.
